Moments after Daniris Espinal walked into her new apartment in Brooklyn, she prayed. In ensuing nights, she would awaken and touch the walls for reassurancefinding in them a relief that turned to tears over her morning coffee.Those walls were possible through a federal program that pays rent for some 60,000 families and individuals fleeing homelessness or domestic violence. Espinal was fleeing both.But the program, Emergency Housing Vouchers, is running out of moneyand quickly.Funding is expected to be used up by the end of next year, according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and obtained by The Associated Press. That would leave tens of thousands across the country scrambling to pay their rent.It would be among the largest one-time losses of rental assistance in the U.S., analysts say, and the ensuing evictions could churn these peopleafter several years of rebuilding their livesback onto the street or back into abusive relationships.“To have it stop would completely upend all the progress that they’ve made,” said Sonya Acosta, policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which researches housing assistance.“And then you multiply that by 59,000 households,” she said.The program, launched in 2021 by then-President Joe Biden as part of the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act, was allocated $5 billion to help pull people out of homelessness, domestic violence and human trafficking.People from San Francisco to Dallas to Tallahassee, Florida, were enrolledamong them children, seniors and veteranswith the expectation that funding would last until the end of the decade.But with the ballooning cost of rent, that $5 billion will end far faster.Last month, HUD sent letters to groups dispersing the money, advising them to “manage your EHV program with the expectation that no additional funding from HUD will be forthcoming.”The program’s future rests with Congress, which could decide to add money as it crafts the federal budget. But it’s a relatively expensive prospect at a time when Republicans, who control Congress, are dead set on cutting federal spending to afford tax cuts.Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who championed the program four years ago, is pushing for another $8 billion infusion.But the organizations lobbying Republican and Democratic lawmakers to reup the funding told the AP they aren’t optimistic. Four GOP lawmakers who oversee the budget negotiations did not respond to AP requests for comment.“We’ve been told it’s very much going to be an uphill fight,” said Kim Johnson, the public policy manager at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.Espinal and her two daughters, aged 4 and 19, are living on one of those vouchers in a three-bedroom apartment with an over $3,000 monthly rentan amount extremely difficult to cover without the voucher.Four years ago, Espinal fought her way out of a marriage where her husband controlled her decisions, from seeing her family and friends to leaving the apartment to go shopping.When she spoke up, her husband said she was wrong, or in the wrong or crazy.Isolated and in the haze of postpartum depression, she didn’t know what to believe. “Every day, little by little, I started to feel not like myself,” she said. “It felt like my mind wasn’t mine.”When notices arrived in March 2021 seeking about $12,000 in back rent, it was a shock. Espinal had quit her job at her husband’s urging and he had promised to cover family expenses.Police reports documenting her husband’s bursts of anger were enough for a judge to give her custody of their daughter in 2022, Espinal said.But her future was precarious: She was alone, owed thousands of dollars in back rent and had no income to pay it or support her newborn and teenage daughters.Financial aid to prevent evictions during the pandemic kept Espinal afloat, paying her back rent and keeping the family out of shelters. But it had an expiration date.Around that time, the Emergency Housing Vouchers program was rolled out, targeting people in Espinal’s situation.A “leading cause of family homelessness is domestic violence” in New York City, said Gina Cappuccitti, director of housing access and stability services at New Destiny Housing, a nonprofit that has connected 700 domestic violence survivors to the voucher program.Espinal was one of those 700, and moved into her Brooklyn apartment in 2023.The relief went beyond finding a secure place to live, she said. “I gained my worth, my sense of peace, and I was able to rebuild my identity.”Now, she said, she’s putting aside money in case of the worst. Because, “that’s my fear, losing control of everything that I’ve worked so hard for.”
Jesse Bedayn Associated Press/Report for America
The death of a pope sets in motion a series of carefully orchestrated rites and rituals well before the conclave to elect his successor begins. They involve the certification of death and public display of his body for the faithful to pay their respects, followed by the funeral and burial.Pope Francis, who died on Monday, revised various rites last year, simplifying the funeral rituals to emphasize his role as a mere bishop and allowing for burial outside the Vatican in keeping with his wishes. But the core elements remain, including the three key moments that must be observed between the death of a pope and his burial.The reforms are incorporated into the slim red volume “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis,” Latin for “Rite of Burial for Roman Pontiffs.”
Why were changes to the funeral rites necessary?
While popes often tinker with the rules regulating the conclave that elects their successor, a revision of the papal funeral rites hadn’t been undertaken since 2000.The changes became necessary after Francis expressed his own wishes, and after Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI died on December 31, 2022. For Benedict, the Vatican had to work out the novelty of a funeral for the first retired pope in 600 years.A few months later, Francis revealed he was working with the Vatican’s master of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to overhaul the entire book of rites to simplify them.In explaining the reforms, Ravelli said the changes aimed “to emphasize even more that the Roman Pontiff’s funeral is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful man of this world.”
The declaration of death
The three main stations, or moments, occur first in his home, then in St. Peter’s Basilica, and then in the place of burial.The reform allows for the formal confirmation of death to occur in Francis’ personal chapel rather than his bedroom. It is unclear why, the change may be more practical than anything since Francis chose to live in a small suite in the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel rather than the Apostolic Palace. He has a personal chapel at Santa Marta.Upon the pope’s death, the head of the Vatican health service examines the body, ascertains the cause of death and writes a report. The body is dressed in white.The body rests in the pope’s personal chapel for the ritual pronouncement of death, presided over by the camerlengo, the Vatican official who runs the Holy See administration between the death or resignation of one pope and the election of another. The camerlengo is American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, one of Francis’ most trusted aides.In a change from the past, the rite no longer requires the body to be placed in the traditional three coffins made of cypress, lead and oak. Now, the pope’s body is placed in a wooden coffin, with a zinc coffin inside. The pope is dressed in red liturgical vestments, his miterthe traditional headdress of bishopsand the pallium woolen stole, a kind of scarf. The Pasqual candle, a large, decorated candle used at Easter, is placed nearby.
The camerlengo drafts the formal declaration of death, attaching the certificate that had been prepared by the health service chief.
The master of liturgical celebrations, Ravelli, then decides when other faithful can pay their respects before the coffin is moved to St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing.
Once in the basilica
When the body is brought into the basilica, the Litany of Saints chant is sung. The camerlengo leads the procession.In another change, the pope’s body is no longer placed on an elevated bier. Rather, the simplified wooden coffin is placed facing the pews, with the Pasqual candle nearby.
The sealing of the coffin
The night before the funeral, the camerlengo presides over the closing and sealing of the coffin, in the presence of other senior cardinals. A white cloth is placed over the pope’s face.
A bag containing coins minted during his papacy is placed in the coffin along with a one-page written account of his papacyknown in Italian as a “rogito,” a word indicating an official deed. It is read aloud by the master of liturgical ceremonies and then rolled up and slipped inside a cylindrical tube that is placed inside the coffin. Another copy is kept in the Vatican archives. The covers of both the zinc coffin and the wooden one bear a cross and the papal coat of arms.Francis’ coat of arms, which he kept from when he was bishop, features a shield and the monogram of his Jesuit order, with the words “Miserando atque eligendo,” Latin for “Having had mercy, he called him.” It comes from an episode in the Gospel where Christ picks a seemingly unworthy person to follow him.
The funeral and burial
The funeral is presided over by the dean of the College of Cardinals or, if that is not possible, by the vice dean or another senior cardinal. The current dean is Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, 91. The vice dean is Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, 81. Francis earlier this year extended both of their five-year terms rather than appoint new ones.Francis’ reform allows for burial outside the Vatican, with the camerlengo presiding. Various seals are impressed on the coffin, and it is placed inside the tomb.Francis has said he wants to be buried not in St. Peter’s Basilica or its grottoes, where most popes are buried, but in the St. Mary Major Basilica across town. His choice reflects his veneration of an icon of the Virgin Mary that is located there, the Salus Populi Romani (Salvation of the people of Rome).After every foreign trip, Francis would go to the basilica to pray before the Byzantine-style painting that features an image of Mary, draped in a blue robe, holding the infant Jesus who in turn holds a jeweled golden book.“It’s my great devotion,” Francis told Mexico’s N+ in revealing his future burial plans. “The place is already prepared.”With the burial, the Catholic Church begins nine days of official mourning, known as the “novemdiales” and the conclave begins.
Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
As remote work becomes the norm rather than the exception, more U.S. professionals are redefining what it means to live and work well. With soaring living costs, healthcare hurdles, and burnout increasingly baked into American life, many are choosing to build their careers abroad.
This shift isnt just about finding cheaper rent or a temporary escape. Its about discovering countries that actively welcome remote workers through smart visa policies, strong infrastructure, and communities that foster sustainable, fulfilling lifestyles.From Asias tech hubs to Europes historic towns, these 10 destinations are leading the remote work revolution and offering a chance to truly engage, not just pass through. Heres where to go and why these spots are setting the standard for the future of work.
1. Spain
Spains Digital Nomad Visa officially launched in 2023, quickly becoming one of the most attractive remote work programs in Europe. Available to non-EU nationals, including U.S. citizens, the visa allows remote workers to live and work in Spain for up to 12 months, with the option to renew for up to five years. Applicants must be employed by a non-Spanish company or freelance for international clients and demonstrate a minimum income of around 2,762.66. Visa holders are eligible for a 24% flat tax rate for the first four years, capped at 600,000/year, making it especially appealing for higher-earning nomads and entrepreneurs.Shane Clark, President of EuroAmerican Financial Advisors, has been based in Spain for the past eight years advising Americans moving abroad. “We’ve noticed a huge uplift in inquiries since the election last year that hasn’t slowed. Election results always provide a catalyst for people who were considering moving anyway, but this time, it has been turbocharged. Spain offers a relaxed lifestyle, affordable living costs, and great digital infrastructure in the cities.Many remote professionals are headed to cities like Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, and the Balearic Islands, where theyre finding a lifestyle that blends Mediterranean ease with modern urban energy. Spain offers reliable internet, a growing number of coworking hubs, and strong communities of international creatives and founders. Beyond the vibrant cities, Spains regional diversity makes it easy to find your perfect balance, whether thats vineyard views in La Rioja, surf breaks in the Canary Islands, or slow living in Andalusia. Affordable high-speed rail connects much of the country, and the cost of living remains lower than most Western European countries, especially outside of major metros.
2. Portugal
Cities like Lisbon, Porto, and Braga have emerged as thriving hubs for remote workers, offering reliable high-speed internet, a lively creative and startup scene, and a warm, welcoming community of international professionals. Portugals Digital Nomad Visa is an ideal solution for remote workers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs looking to live and work legally in Portugal. The visa allows non-EU/EEA citizens to apply for either a short-term stay or a long-term residence permit.
To qualify, applicants must earn at least 3,480 per month from foreign income, provide proof of accommodation, obtain a Portuguese tax number, and typically open a Portuguese bank account. The D8 Visa also allows for family reunification, provides access to Portugals excellent public healthcare system, and offers a pathway to permanent residency or citizenship after five yearsmaking it a top choice for global remote professionals.Portugal meanwhile has the advantage of being an hour nearer the U.S. in terms of its time zone, finishes Clark. Another driver for Americans moving to Portugal is that property is very affordable in southern Europe compared to in many parts of the U.S.. In particular we are seeing a lot of tech industry workers coming over from northern California to work remotely and experience a different lifestyle and culture in Europe.”
Portugal offers sun-drenched coastlines, charming cobblestone neighborhoods, and a relaxed pace that makes room for inspiration and balance. Add in easy Schengen access, strong safety rankings, and a national obsession with good food and great coffee, and its easy to see why Portugal is a place to stay and thrive.
3. Japan
In March 2024, Japan officially launched its Digital Nomad Visa under the Designated Activities residence category, opening the door for remote workers around the world to live and work in the country for up to six months. To qualify, applicants must earn at least 10 million JPY annually (approximately $67,000 USD), hold citizenship in a visa-exempt country with a tax treaty with Japan, and have valid private health insurance. Remote work must be for companies or clients based outside of Japan, and dependents, including spouses and children are permitted to join.
Japans appeal to remote professionals goes far beyond its big cities. Locations like Hinohara Village, tucked in the mountains just 90 minutes from Tokyo, are building digital infrastructure with remote workers in mindoffering fiber-optic internet, free public Wi-Fi, and English-language support rolling out in April 2025. Over 93% forested, the area blends nature and connectivity for a peaceful but productive lifestyle. Hinohara is also launching dedicated accommodations for work stays in 2025, making it easier for nomads to explore long-term relocation options without committing upfront.
From Tokyos booming tech scene and unmatched internet speeds to rural regions investing in modern infrastructure, Japan is positioning itself as a compelling hub for international remote work. Add in low crime rates, reliable public transit, and a rich cultural landscape, and its easy to see why this new visa could be a game changer for digital nomads seeking stability and inspiration.
4. Estonia
Estonia was one of the first countries in the world to roll out a dedicated Digital Nomad Visa, positioning itself as a forward-thinking hub for remote professionals and startup founders. Introduced in 2020, the visa allows non-EU nationals to live in Estonia for up to 12 months while working remotely for a foreign employer or running their own location-independent business. Applicants need to demonstrate a minimum monthly income of 4,500 net income and meet basic documentation requirementsbut the process is streamlined, with an application system that reflects Estonias digital-first mindset.
Known globally for its e-residency program, paperless government, and startup-friendly policies, Estonia has earned its reputation as a digital leader. Tallinn, the capital, combines cobblestone charm with tech-world efficiency, offering ultrafast Wi-Fi, an active community of international entrepreneurs, and coworking spaces tucked inside medieval buildings.
5. Thailand
Thailand continues to be a go-to for digital nomads seeking a blend of affordability, connectivity, and tropical charm. With its welcoming visa policies and thriving expat scene, the country makesit easy to stay productive while living in paradise. While many nomads enter on a 60-day tourist visa (often extendable), Thailand also offers the Smart Visa, a long-term option for highly skilled professionals in fields like tech, health, and innovation. The Smart Visa allows remote workers, entrepreneurs, and investors to stay for up to four years, bypassing the usual work permit requirements and streamlining the path to longer-term living.
Top hubs like Chiang Mai and Bangkok offer everything a remote worker could ask for: high-speed internet, modern coworking spaces, great coffee scenes, and a lower cost of living. Chiang Mai, in particular, has earned a reputation for its laid-back vibe and strong sense of creative community. Bangkok brings a more metropolitan pace, complete with major airport access, and a growing number of international tech startups.
Beyond the cities, Thailands beaches and islands provide a slower, more scenic way to work remotely. Places like Phuket, Koh Lanta, and Koh Phangan are now home to coworking cafés and coliving villas that cater to digital professionals.
6. Mexico
Mexico remains one of the most popular destinations for U.S. digital nomads, combining visa flexibility, strong infrastructure, and a lifestyle rich in culture, cuisine, and community. Through its Temporary Resident Visa, remote workers from most countries can stay in Mexico for up to 12 months initially, with the option to renew for a total of four years.
Cities like Mexico City, Oaxaca, Playa del Carmen, and Mérida have quickly become global hotspots for remote workers. Youll find reliable internet, vibrant coworking spaces, and tight-knit expat communities in nearly every major destination. Mexico City stands out for its dynamic creative and tech scene, world-class food, and endless energy, while beach towns along the Riviera Maya offer oceanfront living without sacrificing connectivity.
7. South Korea
South Korea is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting destinations for remote workers, thanks to its brand-new Digital Nomad Visaofficially launched in early 2024. Known locally as the Workation Visa, this program allows foreign nationals employed by overseas companies to live and work in South Korea for up to one year, with the option to extend for another. To qualify, applicants must show proof of remote employment, an annual income of at least 85 million KRW (about $63,000 USD), and valid health insurance. The visa also supports accompanying family members, making it a strong choice for both solo professionals and digital nomad families.
At the center of the action is Seoula city built for high performance. With some of the fastest internet speeds in the world, an abundance of 24-hour cafés, cutting-edge infrastructure, and a thriving startup scene, it’s a digital haven that never sleeps. Yet beneath the tech-forward surface lies a culture rich in tradition, hospitality, and creativity.
For those craving a more relaxed remote lifestyle, Jeju Island is an underrated gem. This volcanic island offers black-sand beaches, waterfalls, hiking trails, and a growing digital infrastructure geared toward remote work. The island is part of South Koreas push to support “Workation Zones,” offering extended-stay housing, coworking facilities, and nature-infused productivity. With a cost of living approximately 30% lower than major U.S. cities, South Korea provides a dynamic, well-connected, and culturally rich environment for remote professionals ready to plug in and thrive.
8. Vietnam
From the buzz of Ho Chi Minh City to the coastal calm of Da Nang, this Southeast Asian gem offers an unbeatable blend of affordability and creative energy. Coworking spaces can be found for under $100/month, and youll find sleek, modern apartments starting around $300. Whether you’re deep into a product launch or writing your next screenplay, the low cost of living gives you a serious runway to build, breathe, and grow.
If youre earning your income from abroad, Vietnam doesnt tax itmaking it an especially attractive spot for freelancers, founders, and remote teams. Most nomads come intending to stay a few months and end up recalibrating their entire life plan.Tom Zachystal from International Asset Management has been advising Americans abroad on investing and retirement planning for over 20 years. “We’ve definitely seen some shifts in who’s moving abroad and the most popular countries Americans are moving to. There used to be more retirees and American firms sending employees abroad, whereas in the past few years the majority are now young entrepreneurs, digital nomads, and young families, with a sense of adventure and a desire to explore being major motivations. Do your planning and seek advice thoughmany people don’t realize for example that not all U.S. banks and brokerage firms can continue working with non-U.S. residents.”
9. Norway
Norway offers one of the most seamless and inspiring remote work environments in the world. With world-renowned rankings in safety, healthcare, infrastructure, and overall quality of life, its a destination where everything just worksefficiently, beautifully, and reliably. Whether you’re based in Oslo, Bergen, or a small village tucked between fjords, youll find high-speed internet, clean design, and a strong sense of balance between work and nature. Public services are excellent, and the overall standard of living makes Norway a standout for those who prioritize well-being and focus.
While Norway doesnt currently offer a dedicated digital nomad visa, there are flexible pathways for remote professionals. The Self-Employed Person residence permit allows freelancers and entrepreneurs to live and work in Norway, provided they have a signed contract with a Norwegian client, a detailed business plan, and a projected annual income of at least 35,719 (approx. 439,521 NOK). Additionally, remote workers connected to startups, innovation hubs, or cross-border collaborations can explore alternative residence options through Norways Skilled Worker and Startup tracks. The application process is straightforward, with clear guidance and strong institutional support. Cities like Oslo blend modern culture with smart coworking spaces, while towns like Troms and lesund offer access to unfiltered nature without losing digital connectivity.
10. Georgia
Georgia has emerged as new hotspot digital nomads thanks to its forward-thinking Remotely from Georgia program, which allows citizens from 95+ countries to live and work in the country visa-free for up to one year. Launched in 2020 to support the rise of remote work, the initiative requires basic documentationlike proof of remote income (recommended at $2,000/month or more), health insurance, and a confirmed place to stay. With an easy online application process and a welcoming stance toward expats, its become one of the most accessible digital nomad programs in the world.
Tbilisi, the capital, is where most nomads set up basedrawn in by its cobblestone streets, vibrant café culture, and growing startup scene. You can live comfortably in the city for under $700/month, with coworking spaces, boutique Airbnbs, and lively expat meetups throughout the week. The country also offers major financil incentives: a 1% flat tax for registered entrepreneurs under Georgias Small Business Status (up to ~$155,000 annual turnover), making it especially attractive for freelancers, solo founders, and remote consultants looking to optimize their tax strategy.If youre thinking of making the leap abroad, its not just about picking the right destinationits also about staying compliant with U.S. tax laws and understanding what financial responsibilities follow you across borders.Vincenzo Villamena, founder of Online Taxman, has been a digital nomad for over 15 years, living and working in different countries around the world. “Most Americans don’t realize that they have to keep filing U.S. taxes when they move abroad, and this is something that they should definitely factor in. Luckily, there are tax breaks such as the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion for Americans working abroad. Remote working became normalized in the pandemic, which also inspired a desire in many people to go out and explore the world. We now work with thousands of American international digital nomads, both entrepreneurs and those working remotely for US firms. In general, I would say, get informed about both U.S. taxes for expats and the local tax implications of different digital nomad visas, and seek advice if you need to.”As more Americans rethink what success, freedom, and quality of life really mean, the global map is shifting. Whether you’re chasing sunlight, savings, community, or simply a change of pace, the world awaits.
Monday, April 21, 2025, is Easter Monday. It’s the final day of the long weekend of Easter celebrations that traditionally kicks off on Good Friday and is celebrated by millions of people across the world.
But while Easter Monday may be a widely celebrated religious holiday, many institutions remain open on the day, even if they were closed on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. However, some institutions will be closed in observance of the day.
Heres what you need to know about whats open and closed on Easter Monday 2025.
Is Easter Monday a federal holiday?
No. Easter Monday is not a federally recognized public holiday in the United States. This means that federal institutions that are normally open on a Monday should be operating as normal today, too.
However, its worth pointing out that Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri has recently introduced a bill called the Easter Monday Act of 2025 that would make Easter Monday a federal holiday, according to K8 News in Arkansas. It remains to be seen whether the bill will advance through Congress.
Are banks open on Easter Monday?
Yes, most major banks will be open on Easter Monday. This includes banks like Chase, PNC, Wells Fargo, Citi, and more. It should go without saying that banks online services will also be operating as usual.
Are ATMs open on Easter Monday?
Yep. Just as banks are, ATMs will be open on Easter Monday. But note that after a long holiday weekend, sometimes ATMs may have low cash availability.
Is the post office open on Easter Monday?
Yes, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is open on Easter Monday. The USPS is a federal organization, so it only pauses operations on federally recognized holidays. This means all USPS locations should be operating as normal.
Is mail delivered on Easter Monday?
Yes. The U.S. Postal Service will be making home mail deliveries on Easter Monday.
Are FedEx and UPS operating on Easter Monday?
Despite FedEx having closed or operating under a reduced schedule some days over the Easter holiday period, the private shipper says it will have normal operations on Easter Monday, according to FedExs holiday schedule.
Likewise, UPS will also be operating as normal on Easter Monday, according to its holiday schedule.
Is the stock market open on Easter Monday?
Yes. Major U.S. stock markets will be open on Easter Monday, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq. Both these markets were closed on Good Friday, but their holiday schedules do not include Easter Monday.
Many other major stock markets around the world are closed in observance of Easter Monday.
Are schools open on Easter Monday?
This depends, so it is best to check directly with the individual school in question. In many states, public schools may be open if Easter Monday doesnt coincide with their Spring Break week.
However, according to the website Time and Date, Easter Monday 2025 coincides with Patriots’ Day in Maine and Massachusetts, which is a public holiday in those states. So, public schools in those states may be closed today.
Likewise, private religious schools may choose to be closed today. But again, its best to check with your particular school in question directly.
Are restaurants open on Easter Monday?
Most company-run chain restaurants should be open as normal, including the usual suspects like McDonalds, Taco Bell, Subway, and Burger King. Fast casual chains like Chipotle and the like should also be open, as well as sit-down establishments like Red Lobster and Olive Garden.
Most branches of coffee chains like Dunkin’ and Starbucks should also be open.
However, do note that franchisees usually have the power to set their own holiday closures. So its possible individual stores of well-known chains could be closed in particular areas if the owners of those stores observe Easter Monday as a holiday.
Are retail stores open on Easter Monday?
Most big-box retail stores should be open on Easter Monday. This includes the usual big chains like Best Buy, Target, Costco, Home Depot, and Walmart.
Are pharmacies open on Easter Monday?
Most chain pharmacies like those at Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid should be open as normal.
Are grocery stores open on Easter Monday?
Yes, most regional grocery stores should be operating as normal on Easter Monday. However, note that they may be busier than usual today as many were likely closed all day on Easter Sunday.
When David Mesfin was producing his documentary on Black surfing culture, Wade in the Water, back in 2023, he had a problem. Like millions of other people since ChatGPT and other GenAI tools emerged in late 2022, Mesfin was experimenting and using these tools to generate imagery for the film. But the results were always the same: white surfers with darkened skin, says Mesfin, a creative director at ad agency Innocean. It was a clear sign that these systems werent built with us in mind. That moment made it impossible to ignore how deeply bias is embedded in the technology.
This week, sparked by that moment, Mesfin and his colleagues have launched Breaking Bias, a collaboration with stock image firm Pocstock, and more than 22 agency partners. As part of the project, 16 photographers donated their time to capture more inclusive images to help create what theyre calling the first-ever Ethical AI Guidebooka framework that helps creators and developers make AI more like the real world.
Only 2.3% of AI-generated images of dentists featured Asians, despite the fact they make up 22% of the profession. About 9.6% of nurses are Latino, but 0% of AI-generated images reflected them. As more and more marketers utilize AI to create content, its crucial to build and maintain data sets that represent reality as accurately as possible.
The goal of the Ethical AI Guidebook is to spark a mindset shiftencouraging content creators, agencies, and AI developers to make inclusivity a core part of how they generate and use imagery, says Mesfin. This initiative is about more than just fixing flawed outputs; its about creating long-term behavioral change within the AI ecosystem. By offering practical guidance and real-world examples, we aim to help the industry build technology that reflects the full spectrum of humanity.”
Training challenge
So far, the project has created more than 96,000 images for Pocstocks inventory, and the images will be accessible to companies that utilize AI image generation like Adobe, Amazon, Canva, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Shutterstock.
The biggest challenge for Mesfin and project collaborators was the vetting process to make sure they selected photographers who not only had technical skill but also understood and were connected to the communities they were aiming to represent.
We werent looking for models; we were looking for real people, and that meant being intentional about casting talent that reflected the full spectrum of the demographic, says Mesfin. For example, when capturing Black surfers, we made it a point to include both men and women, with a range of skin tones from dark to light. We also prioritized having both male and female photographers involved to bring different perspectives to the work.
Strategic approach
The challenge of tackling bias in AI models has been an ongoing issue for years. Pocstock cofounder and chief relationship officer DeSean Brown says that if the goal is for AI to produce outcomes that would appear more authentic and inclusive to humans there needs to be a finely curated and strategic approach to capturing excessive amounts of images and data.
“We need to target specific people, communities, and actions, [then] capture and label the images accurately with cultural and technical nuance, says Brown. Many content creators and collectors may not have the experience, process, or resources to assess negative stereotypes and bias or the ability to label data in a culturally accurate way. Continued partnership among tech companies, content creators, stock and data collection companies can help the industry get to where it needs to be.
Given the scale of the task at hand, Breaking Bias is an ongoing project that is always looking for new content partners to join who want to help build more representative data sets. If youre part of an AI company, we welcome your collaboration, too, says Mesfin. This is a collective effort, and the more voices we bring to the table, the stronger and more accurate the technology becomes.
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
When I was a young professional in the 1990s, I didnt aspire to be a CEO. (I was a business journalist focused on getting more challenging editorial assignments.) And even if I had wanted to run a company, I wouldnt have known how to cobble together the necessary experiences to qualify for a CEO role.
Graham Weaver, CEO and founding partner of Alpine Investors, has streamlined that process for ambitious MBAs who, unlike me, know early in their careers that they want to be CEOs. Alpine, a private equity firm with $18 billion in assets under management, offers a CEO-in-Training (CIT) program that places wannabe chief executives in senior roles at its portfolio companies.
A crash course in being a CEO
During their time in the CIT program, trainees are immersed in all aspects of running a business. They have access to mentorship from board members and executives at other Alpine-backed companies, and they regularly gather as a cohort for networking and peer coaching summits. Weaver says the program, launched in 2015, allows aspiring executives to move into CEO rolesa journey that can take decadesin just months or a few short years.
Graham Weaver [Photo: Alpine Investors]
We created a system where aspiring leaders could come in and learn the basics of being a CEO with a kind of safety net underneath them, which gives them a very, very high probability of success, says Weaver, who also teaches a class focused on leadership and entrepreneurship at Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Business.
The CEO-in-Training program is highly selective. Alpine hired 14 CITs for its 2024 cohort, and this year it will recruit about 10 trainees in a process that is set to wrap up in early summer. The company says Stanford, Harvard Business School, Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management, and the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School all confirm that the Alpine CIT program is one of the most applied-to programs among MBAs seeking executive roles in private equity (PE)-backed companies.
What makes a successful CIT?
Weaver says the ideal candidates for the CIT program have a will to winthats something we cant teach, but he also seeks candidates who can temper their competitiveness with self-awareness and emotional intelligence. We used to not screen for that, he says. We would get these really hard-charging people, and they wouldn’t work out in our system, where its really team-based.
Finally, he looks for people who can create a followership, adding, this rarely is the charismatic person who stands up and gives the big rah-rah speech. Its actually just someone people trust; they want to go where this persons going.
Alpines program has produced a diverse group of leaders: Since launching, the program has minted more than 65 full-time CEOs for its portfolio companies; nearly 40% are women, and nearly a quarter are women of color.
Weaver says his commitment to training a new generation of executives stems from his belief that Alpines talent strategy differentiates it from other private equity firms in terms of attracting investing professionals and portfolio company executives alike. He says rather than ceding talent development to human resources, he has sought to operationalize it through programs such as the CIT program and other initiatives. Weaver personally dedicates nearly 50% of his time to assessing and developing talent, he says, including evaluating potential hires to run Alpine portfolio companies, designing culture, and more.
The Gen Z difference
Weaver, who has taught and hired employees from different generations, is bullish on Gen Z, the newest cohort to enter the workforce. I know a lot of people complain about this generation. The stereotype is that theyre going to quit their jobs more quickly or they have their own personal goals, and theyre difficult to manage, Weaver says. But underneath all that is that they want to make a difference.
When I asked how a career in private equity, with its relentless pursuit of efficiency, margin improvement, and cash, can satisfy purpose-driven young people, Weaver noted that several Alpine portfolio companies provide software and services to nonprofits or support their communities through healthcare and education services. He says he takes pride in making sure the people who work at Alpine and its portfolio companiesabout 38,000 peoplehave meaningful work and career opportunities.
And Weaver says he appreciates the values that Gen Z is bringing to Alpine. They hold us to a higher standard, he says. If you can meet that standard, Gen Zs amazing.
How do you train the next generation of leaders?
Are you or your team focused on developing young leaders through mentorship, formal training programs, or in other ways? Id love to hear about these efforts. Send me your thoughts at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com.
Read more: Gen Z
Fast Companys 142-point guide to managing Gen Z
Meet the youngest founders on the Inc. 5000 list of Americas fastest-growing companies
Gen Z distrusts capitalism. Will they prevail in changing the system?
In the early morning hours of January 7, 2025, Mario Tama, a Getty Images photographer based in Los Angeles, was woken up by intense winds. Every year, Southern California experiences Santa Ana winds, known for the hot, dry weather they bring. But these winds came early, and with record strength. Experts were warning that the wind, combined with high levels of flammable vegetation, created dangerous fire conditions.
That morning, Tama had an ominous feeling. You just knew it was going to be bad, he says. The wildfires that broke out that day were just the beginning of a series of catastrophic blazes that burned through Los Angeles County. More than 40,000 acres burned, and tens of thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. The Palisades Fire alone burned more than 10,600 properties, and the Eaton fire another 9,200.
And Tama was there to capture them. As a staff photographer at Getty Images for more than 20 years, Tama has borne witness to hurricanes, fires, droughts, and other disasters year after year. But the L.A. fires were happening in his own backyard. That proximity added another layer to his work.
Photojournalists usually only get to spend a week or two on the ground when visiting a far-off location, before they’re pulled to cover something else. With the L.A. fires, Tama wantedand he says his editors encouraged himto document every stage of the journey. Since January, hes been photographing not only the fires, but also the clean-up efforts, how rows and rows of burnt shells of homes have turned into cleared lots, the way greenery has begun to grow back through the ashes, and how the community continues to come together. As national headlines move on to the latest news or the most recent disaster, Tamas images show the drawn-out reality of living through the climate crisis.
People attempt to save a neighboring home from catching fire during the Eaton Fire on January 8, 2025, in Altadena, California. [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
An Incomprehensible Disaster
On January 7, when the fires began, Tama started by heading to the Palisades, where the first fire was reported. The strong winds meant firefighters couldnt do frequent aerial drops to disperse water or flame retardant onto the blazes, because it was difficult for the helicopters to fly. It just seemed like they werent able to stop it at all, he says.
Then he got an alert about the Eaton Fire, and headed that way, though it took hours to get through the traffic. Covering two major fires simultaneously was a shock. Shooting the Eaton fire that evening, he remembers watching embers blowing from a home and swirling in the wind, and seeing smoke in all directions. Those embers, caught in the record-high gusts, are what caused the fire to spread so rapidly.
An aerial view of homes destroyed in the Palisades Fire. [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
The disaster quickly reached an intense scale, and to capture that, Tama knew he needed aerial images. Theres no way from the ground to do it, he says. Two days after the fires began, during a respite in the winds, he was able to get into a helicopter and travel over the Palisades. As the helicopter first passed over the Santa Monica Pier, he saw a sea of white and smoke, of what used to be families homes, he says. To think of all those families, its just completely heartbreakingand still, to me, somewhat incomprehensible.
As a photojournalist, Tama is always trying to make the reality on the ground tangible to viewers across the world. But in the case of the L.A. fires, he says it was difficult to actually translate what he witnessed. I feel like, to this day, no image, no matter how hard we try, can sum up the scale of the loss and devastation, and the human toll, he says. So the only thing I can do is just keep going back as much as I can.
Eaton Fire survivor Dr. Jacqueline Jacobs, 88, stands for a photo in front of her destroyed home with her daughter Madrid Jacobs-Brown on January 30, 2025, in Altadena, California. Jacobs said she and her husband never received an evacuation warning on the night of the fire. She said, We heard someone in the street say, ‘Get out.’ And we did just that with only the clothes we had on. And everything now is in ashes. Only the chimney is standing.” A UCLA study revealed that Altadenas Black residents were 1.3 times more likely to have suffered complete destruction or major damage to their homes in the Eaton Fire. [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
Documenting life after the fires
The fires have since been contained, but L.A. residents are still living with the wake of the disaster. Theyrenavigating the loss of their homes and the process of rebuilding. Theyre battling with insurance companies and the bureaucracies of FEMA. Theyre volunteering to distribute foodand Tema says those volunteers include people who lost their own homes.
Grassroots community groups are even trying to save trees in the burn zones. The trees were a really important part of those communities, he says. Youre seeing some of these trees that looked like they were definitely dead, [now] with green growth coming out, Tama says. It kind of gives you a little hope that nature is coming through.
Community events continue to bring people together to talk through their experiences. No one can understand what people went through except their neighbors, Tama says. Hes also documented congregations that, though their churches were destroyed, have met in other venues. He has heard a number of times that it wasnt the building that made the church, it was the people.
In an aerial view, Bishop Charles Dorsey leads a prayer rally for the Altadena community and for his church, amid the remains of Lifeline Fellowship Christian Center, which burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, on April 12, 2025, in Altadena, California. Dr. Dorsey attended the church as a child with his family and has led the church for more than 20 years. He plans to rebuild and said, “It’s not just a building, but home also.” [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
One aerial photograph Tama captured shows a prayer circle on the grounds of a destroyed church property in April, months after the fires. The current bishop had been attending that church since he was a child. Hes planning to rebuild, but in the meantime he organized this circle to pray for the community. The group can be seen holding hands amid a mess of gray ash and rubble. But even through all that gray, the picture shows some greenery growing back. It felt like a powerful moment speaking to the strength of the community, Tama says.
In another image, also taken in April, two Altadena residents excavate calla lilies from outside the burnt remains of their home. This couple welcomed Tama in to document their story, he says, and he learned that the flowers were originally planted by the womans father; the home had been in her family for 25 years. Before the Army Corps cleared the lot of the burnt debris, they noticed the flowers had regrown, and went to rescue them. They were saving those, and theyre planning to replant them at their new lot, Tama says.
Leticia Serafin and Paul Fonseca retrieve flowers at the remains of their home, shortly before debris removal by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractors, on April 16, 2025, in Altadena, California. The couple lost their home of 25 years in the Eaton Fire and are residing next to their property in a donated travel trailer. Serafin said the flowers died in the fire but regrew recently in front of their home. They are making plans to rebuild. [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
The importance of climate photography
Since Tama is a Los Angeles resident himself, he feels a particular pressure to communicate the loss and the suffering across Southern California. And as a photographer who has documented climate disasters for years, he also knows the value of sharing such images. You want everyone to see this and to know that this happened, so that people are aware that these disasters are becoming more frequent, and communities and local governments everywhere need to be ready, he says. The more these images make it to the public, he says, the more people can start to wrap their heads around what our current climate reality looks like.
The country has changed dramatically since the L.A. wildfires, which adds even more importance to their documentation. The fires broke out when Joe Biden was still in office; since then, President Donald Trump has waged attacks on climate resources, taking steps to dismantle FEMA, and cut other forms of disaster recovery funding. Hes also gutted offices like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which includes weather monitoring that helps communities prepare for climate disasters.
Even more broadly, hes attacked and hobbled clean tech like renewable energy, and pushed for an increase in fossil fuelsthe burning of which leads to more greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, directly exacerbating climate disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and tornados.
Tama knows that images have a way of searing themselves into our consciousness, our brain, in a way that statistics never will be able to do. He hopes his continued documentation of the L.A. fires and their aftermath speaks to people across the country about the reality of living through a climate disaster. If theres going to be less support from place like FEMA, he says, its even more important for local governments, local communities, to know whats going on and to understand how to prepare for this future.
A rainbow appears over beachfront properties destroyed in the Palisades Fire along the Pacific Ocean on March 06, 2025, in Malibu, California. [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
Last year, Tama was on the ground in North Carolina covering Hurricane Helene. He spoke after that, too, about seeing the level of devastation, and the strength of community bonds. Even though the two disasters are drastically differentand Appalachia and Southern California are not usually mentioned in the same sentence”he sees a through line. What those two disasters speak to is the larger issue of, this isnt a Red State or a Blue State issue, he says. Its happening in all states, and we all need to be ready and prepared and paying attention.
Pope Francis, historys first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88.
Bells tolled in church towers across Rome after the announcement, which was read out by Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo, from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived.
At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church, Ferrell said.
Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on February 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.
But he emerged on Easter Sundayhis last public appearance, a day before his deathto bless thousands of people in St. Peters Square and treat them to a surprise popemobile romp through the piazza, drawing wild cheers and applause. Beforehand, he met briefly with U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
Francis performed the blessing from the same loggia where he was introduced to the world on March 13, 2013 as the 266th pope.
From his first greeting that nighta remarkably normal Buonasera (Good evening)to his embrace of refugees and the downtrodden, Francis signaled a very different tone for the papacy, stressing humility over hubris for a Catholic Church beset by scandal and accusations of indifference.
After that rainy night, the Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis election.
But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists. His greatest test came in 2018 when he botched a notorious case of clergy sexual abuse in Chile, and the scandal that festered under his predecessors erupted anew on his watch.
And then Francis, the crowd-loving, globe-trotting pope of the peripheries, navigated the unprecedented reality of leading a universal religion through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City.
He implored the world to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to rethink the economic and political framework that he said had turned rich against poor.
We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, Francis told an empty St. Peters Square in March 2020. But he also stressed the pandemic showed the need for all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.
At the Vatican on Monday, the mood was a mix of somber quiet among people who knew and worked for Francis, and the typical buzz of tourists visiting St. Peters Square on the day after Easter. While many initially didn’t know the news, some sensed something happening given the swarms of television crews.
The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, wiped tears from his eyes as he met with journalists in the press room.
The death now sets off a weekslong process of allowing the faithful to pay their final respects, first for Vatican officials in the Santa Marta chapel and then in St. Peters for the general public, followed by a funeral and a conclave to elect a new pope.
Reforming the Vatican
Francis was elected on a mandate to reform the Vatican bureaucracy and finances but went further in shaking up the church without changing its core doctrine. Who am I to judge? he replied when asked about a purportedly gay priest.
The comment sent a message of welcome to the LGBTQ+ community and those who felt shunned by a church that had stressed sexual propriety over unconditional love. Being homosexual is not a crime, he told the Associated Press in 2023, urging an end to civil laws that criminalize it.
Stressing mercy, Francis changed the churchs position on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in all circumstances. He also declared the possession of nuclear weapons, not just their use, was immoral.
In other firsts, he approved an agreement with China over bishop nominations that had vexed the Vatican for decades, met the Russian patriarch, and charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq.
He reaffirmed the all-male, celibate priesthood and upheld the churchs opposition to abortion, equating it to hiring a hit man to solve a problem.
Roles for women
But he added women to important decision-making roles and allowed them to serve as lectors and acolytes in parishes. He let women vote alongside bishops in periodic Vatican meetings, following long-standing complaints that women do much of the churchs work but are barred from power.
Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom Francis named to one of the highest Vatican jobs, said his legacy was a vision of a church where men and women existed in a relationship of reciprocity and respect.
It was about shifting a pattern of dominationfrom human being to the creation, from men to womento a pattern of cooperation, said Becquart, the first woman to hold a voting position in a Vatican synod.
The church as refuge
While Francis did not allow women to be ordained, the voting reform was part of a revolutionary change in emphasizing what the church should be: a refuge for everyonetodos, todos, todos (everyone, everyone, everyone)not for the privileged few. Migrants, the poor, prisoners and outcasts were invited to his table far more than presidents or powerful CEOs.
For Pope Francis, it was always to extend the arms of the church to embrace all people, not to exclude anyone, said Farrell, the camerlengo, taking charge after a pontiffs death or retirement.
Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect Gods creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty, and oppression.
After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential canidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out is not Christian.
While progressives were thrilled with Francis radical focus on Jesus message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic.
A few cardinals openly challenged him. Francis usually responded with his typical answer to conflict: silence.
He made it easier for married Catholics to get an annulment, allowed priests to absolve women who had had abortions and decreed that priests could bless same-sex couples. He opened debate on issues like homosexuality and divorce, giving pastors wiggle room to discern how to accompany their flocks, rather than handing them strict rules to apply.
St. Francis of Assisi as a model
Francis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasnt a gimmick.
I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful, he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.
If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasnt enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century friar known for personal simplicity, a message of peace, and care for nature and societys outcasts.
Francis sought out the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and the homeless. He formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward.
And he himself suffered: He had part of his colon removed in 2021, then needed more surgery in 2023 to repair a painful hernia and remove intestinal scar tissue. Starting in 2022 he regularly used a wheelchair or cane because of bad knees, and endured bouts of bronchitis.
He went to societys fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the grossly deformed head of a man in St. Peters Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentinas garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro.
We have always been marginalized, but Pope Francis always helped us, said Coqui Vargas, a transgender woman whose Roman community forged a unique relationship with Francis during the pandemic.
His first trip as pope was to the island of Lampedusa, then the epicenter of Europes migration crisis. He consistently chose to visit poor countries where Christians were often persecuted minorities, rather than the centers of global Catholicism.
Friend and fellow Argentine, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, said his concern for the poor and disenfranchised was based on the Beatitudesthe eight blessings Jesus delivered in the Sermon on the Mount for the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit and others.
Why are the Beatitudes the program of this pontificate? Because they were the basis of Jesus Christs own program, Sánchez said.
Missteps on sexual abuse scandal
But more than a year passed before Francis met with survivors of priestly sexual abuse, and victims groups initially questioned whether he really understood the scope of the problem.
Francis did create a sex abuse commission to advise the church on best practices, but it lost its influence after a few years and its recommendation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests went nowhere.
And then came the greatest crisis of his papacy, when he discredited Chilean abuse victims in 2018 and stood by a controversial bishop linked to their abuser. Realizing his error, Francis invited the victims to the Vatican for a personal mea culpa and summoned the leadership of the Chilean church to resign en masse.
As that crisis concluded, a new one erupted over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington and a counselor to three popes.
Francis had actually moved swiftly to sideline McCarrick amid an accusation he had molested a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. But Francis nevertheless was accused by the Vaticans one-time U.S. ambassador of having rehabilitated McCarrick early in his papacy.
Francis eventually defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused adults as well as minors. He changed church law to remove the pontifical secret surrounding abuse cases and enacted procedures to investigate bishops who abused or covered for their pedophile priests, seeking to end impunity for the hierarchy.
He sincerely wanted to do something and he transmitted that, said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean abuse survivor Francis discredited who later developed a close friendship with the pontiff.
A change from Benedict
The road to Francis 2013 election was paved by Pope Benedict XVIs decision to resign and retirethe first in 600 yearsand it created the unprecedented reality of two popes living in the Vatican.
Francis didnt shy from Benedicts potentially uncomfortable shadow. He embraced him as an elder statesman and adviser, coaxing him out of his cloistered retirement to participate in the public life of the church.
Its like having your grandfather in the house, a wise grandfather, Francis said.
Francis praised Benedict by saying he opened the door to others following suit, fueling speculation that Francis also might retire. But after Benedicts death on Dec. 31, 2022, he asserted that in principle the papacy is a job for life.
Francis looser liturgical style and pastoral priorities made clear he and the German-born theologian came from very different religious traditions, and Francis directly overturned several decisions of his predecessor.
He made sure Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, a hero to the liberation theology movement in Latin America, was canonized after his case languished under Benedict over concerns about the credos Marxist bent.
Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, arguing the spread of the Tridentine Rite was divisive. The move riled Francis traditionalist critics and opened sustained conflict between right-wing Catholics, particularly in the U.S., and the Argentine pope.
Conservatives oppose Francis
By then, conservatives had already turned away from Francis, betrayed after he opened debate on allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments if they didnt get an annulmenta church ruling that their first marriage was invalid.
We dont like this pope, headlined Italys conservative daily Il Foglio a few months into the papacy, reflecting the unease of the small but vocal traditionalist Catholic movement that was coddled under Benedict.
Those same critics amplified their complaints after Francis approved church blessings for same-sex couples, and a controversial accord with China over nominating bishops.
Its details were never released, but conservative critics bashed it as a sellout to communist China, while the Vatican defended it as the best deal it could get with Beijing.
U.S. Cardina Raymond Burke, a figurehead in the anti-Francis opposition, said the church had become like a ship without a rudder.
Burke waged his opposition campaign for years, starting when Francis fired him as the Vaticans supreme court justice and culminating with his vocal opposition to Francis 2023 synod on the churchs future.
Twice, he joined other conservative cardinals in formally asking Francis to explain himself on doctrine issues reflecting a more progressive bent, including on the possibility of same-sex blessings and his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
Francis eventually sanctioned Burke financially, accusing him of sowing disunity. It was one of several personnel moves he made in both the Vatican and around the world to shift the balance of power from doctrinaire leaders to more pastoral ones.
Francis insisted his bishops and cardinals imbue themselves with the odor of their flock and minister to the faithful, voicing displeasure when they didnt.
His 2014 Christmas address to the Vatican Curia was one of the greatest public papal reprimands ever: Standing in the marbled Apostolic Palace, Francis ticked off 15 ailments that he said can afflict his closest collaborators, including spiritual Alzheimers, lusting for power and the terrorism of gossip.
Trying to eliminate corruption, Francis oversaw the reform of the scandal-marred Vatican bank and sought to wrestle Vatican bureaucrats into financial line, limiting their compensation and ability to receive gifts or award public contracts.
He authorized Vatican police to raid his own secretariat of state and the Vaticans financial watchdog agency amid suspicions about a 350 million euro investment in a London real estate venture. After a 2 1/2-year trial, the Vatican tribunal convicted a once-powerful cardinal, Angelo Becciu, of embezzlement and returned mixed verdicts to nine others, acquitting one.
The trial, though, proved to be a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, showing deficiencies in the Vaticans legal system, unseemly turf battles among monsignors, and how the pope had intervened on behalf of prosecutors.
While earning praise for trying to turn the Vaticans finances around, Francis angered U.S. conservatives for his frequent excoriation of the global financial market that favors the rich over the poor.
Economic justice was an important themes of his papacy, and he didnt hide it in his first meeting with journalists when he said he wanted a poor church that is for the poor.
In his first major teaching document, The Joy of the Gospel, Francis denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, based on a mentality where the powerful feed upon the powerless with no regard for ethics, the environment or even God.
Money must serve, not rule! he said in urging political reforms.
He elaborated on that in his major eco-encyclical Praised Be, denouncing the structurally perverse global economic system that he said exploited the poor and risked turning Earth into an immense pile of filth.
Some U.S. conservatives branded Francis a Marxist. He jabbed back by saying he had many friends who were Marxists.
Soccer, opera and prayer
Born Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants.
He credited his devout grandmother Rosa with teaching him how to pray. Weekends were spent listening to opera on the radio, going to Mass and attending matches of the familys beloved San Lorenzo soccer club. As pope, his love of soccer brought him a huge collection of jerseys from visitors.
He said he received his religious calling at 17 while going to confession, recounting in a 2010 biography that, I dont know what it was, but it changed my life. . . . I realized that they were waiting for me.
He entered the diocesan seminary but switched to the Jesuit order in 1958, attracted to its missionary tradition and militancy.
Around this time, he suffered from pneumonia, which led to the removal of the upper part of his right lung. His frail health prevented him from becoming a missionary, and his less-than-robust lung capacity was perhaps responsible for his whisper of a voice and reluctance to sing at Mass.
On Dec. 13, 1969, he was ordained a priest, and immediately began teaching. In 1973, he was named head of the Jesuits in Argentina, an appointment he later acknowledged was crazy given he was only 36. My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative, he admitted in his Civilta Cattolica interview.
Life under Argentinas dictatorship
His six-year tenure as provincial coincided with Argentinas murderous 1976-83 dictatorship, when the military launched a campaign against left-wing guerrillas and other regime opponents.
Bergoglio didnt publicly confront the junta and was accused of effectively allowing two slum priests to be kidnapped and tortured by not publicly endorsing their work.
He refused for decades to counter that version of events. Only in a 2010 authorized biography did he finally recount the behind-the-scenes lengths he used to save them, persuading the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so he could say Mass instead. Once in the junta leaders home, Bergoglio privately appealed for mercy. Both priests were eventually released, among the few to have survived prison.
As pope, accounts began to emerge of the many peoplepriests, seminarians, and political dissidentswhom Bergoglio actually saved during the dirty war, letting them stay incognito at the seminary or helping them escape the country.
Bergoglio went to Germany in 1986 to research a never-finished thesis. Returning to Argentina, he was stationed in Cordoba during a period he described as a time of great interior crisis. Out of favor with more progressive Jesuit leaders, he was eventually rescued from obscurity in 1992 by St. John Paul II, who named him an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. He became archbishop six years later, and was made a cardinal in 2001.
He came close to becoming pope in 2005 when Benedict was elected, gaining the second-most votes in several rounds of balloting before bowing out.
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
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Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed from Milan.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Behind the curtain of generative AI breakthroughs and GPU hype, a quieter transformation is taking place. Data center architecture and its prowess have become a fierce battleground as AI models expand in size and demand ever-greater compute power. Today, AIs performance, scalability and cost are all tied to the choice of network fabric. Broadcom, once known for its dominance in networking and semiconductors, is back on the rise as one of the most consequential players in AIs infrastructure revolution.
Theres a shift happening in the market. Today, real AI innovation isnt just limited to models or the infrastructureits in what connects them, Ram Velaga, senior vice president and general manager of Broadcoms Core Switching Group, told Fast Company during the NTT Upgrade 2025 event. AI is not just about GPUs or compute anymore. Its about how data moves, power is managed, and how systems scale.
Founded in 1991 as Broadcom Corporation, Broadcom began as a semiconductor company focused on wireless and broadband communication, operating from a modest Los Angeles garage. A major turning point occurred in 2015 when Avago Technologies acquired Broadcom for $37 billion, leading to Broadcom’s transformation into a global semiconductor and infrastructure technology leader. Avagos origins trace back to HP’s semiconductor division, linking Broadcoms current parent company to HPs semiconductor legacy. Through strategic acquisitions, including ServerWorks in 2001 and VMware in 2023, Broadcom expanded its reach, especially in the data center space.
Its influence is vast, yet often underestimated. The companys reputation is driven by high-speed Ethernet chips like the Tomahawk series, which are crucial for high-bandwidth networking within data architectures. Now, the 60-year-old semiconductor giant isnt chasing headlines with ChatGPT-style theatrics. Instead, its embracing a less flashy but more foundational role: building the infrastructure for AI developers to scale the technology. Velaga and his team are quietly helping tech giants and hyperscalers (large-scale cloud service providers that offer extensive computing resources) rethink the architecture of their data centers through deeply integrated systemscodesigned chips, bespoke interconnects, and a commitment to Ethernet, even as others in the industry begin to move on.
Currently, Nvidia dominates the data center network market with its GPU and Ethernet-integrated data center network platforms like Spectrum-X, which promise to drive AI training to new heights. As of 2025, Nvidia commands an estimated 25% share of the entire data center segment, and a dominant 98% share in data center GPU shipments.
However, according to Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, the companys strength in custom AI processors and Ethernet networking products is fueling its growth. Broadcom expects to capture a significant portion of the expanding market, projecting its serviceable addressable market (SAM) for AI processors and networking chips to reach $6090 billion by fiscal 2027, given the company maintains its current market share of approximately 55% to 70% in the AI chip segment.
While Nvidia offers both InfiniBand and Ethernet in its data center portfolio, Broadcoms Velaga contends that Ethernet is poised to become the backbone of tomorrows AI infrastructure, and the company is investing heavily to innovate the technology further.
Were seeing hyperscalers including Meta and others, really leaning into Ethernet for AI infrastructure. Unlike alternatives like Infiniband, Ethernet is inherently designed to handle data failures, recalibrate quickly, and maintain performance for AI models even under real-world conditions like heat and congestion, Velaga told Fast Company during the event. Ethernet is built for all these use cases, and beats infiniband.
What is Ethernet and Why Now?
Ethernet is a foundational networking technology that enables wired communication between devices in data centers. It transmits data through physical cables like twisted pair or fiber optics, connecting servers, storage, and networking equipment. In modern data centers, Ethernet link speeds have scaled from 1 Gbps to 400 Gbpswith 800 Gbps already on the horizon, to handle the massive data throughput demanded by AI workloads. Moreover, the technology facilitates high-speed data transfer between GPUs and storage, enabling efficient AI training and the creation of distributed GPU clusters.
Broadcoms argument is simple: Ethernet, the backbone of the internet for decades, is finally ready for its AI prime time. Ethernets openness, flexibility, and multivendor support give tech giants like Meta and Google the freedom to innovate without being boxed in by a proprietary stack.
Ethernet lets you scale horizontally across thousands of GPUs. Copper has always been the cheaper and more reliable option compared to optics. For a while, people tried cramming as many racks as possible into data centers utilizing copper networking, but that approach just isnt sustainable, Velaga said. Now, were seeing a shift toward optics to meet higher power and bandwidth demands. Now, with our current and upcoming chipsets that integrate copackaged photonics, were very well positioned for helping enterprises with future workloads.
Another alternative, InfiniBand designed for environments that demand ultrafast data transfer and minimal latencysuch as HPC clusters and advanced data centers. Known for its high throughput (up to 400 Gbps) and ultralow latency (as low as one microsecond), its currently a popular choice for mission-critical workloads requiring rapid, reliable communication.
However, InfiniBand operates on the assumption of a flawless environmentand according to Velaga, thats precisely the problem. He explained that modern data centers and GPU clusters exist in far-from-perfect conditions. As organizations scale their AI infrastructure, they quickly run into challenges like heat, signal degradation, and system noise. In the real world, systems arent perfect, he said. Theres noise, heat, jitter. InfiniBand assumes everything is lossless. Ethernet was built to deal with reality.
Tomahawk5 vs. Spectrum-X: A Battle of Philosophies
NVIDIAs SpectrumX isnt just Ethernetits NVIDIAs customized version of it. The company markets SpectrumX as a purpose-built platform for AI, combining proprietary clustering with claimed performance and efficiency gains: 1.61.7 times higher network throughput, 2.5 times better bandwidth for collective operations, and 1.7 times improved power-performance, leading to a lower total cost of ownership for distributed AI training. By April 2025, SpectrumX had been adopted by major tech players including Dell, HPE, Lenovo, and leading hyperscalers.
But Velaga argues that real flexibility and reliability come from open-standard Ethernet, where any GPU can plug in without locking users into a single vendors ecosystem. NVIDIAs market approach, he says, is contradictory to Ethernets core principles: openness, interoperability, and customer choice.
When someone says their Ethernet is better than others, they probably dont fully understand what Ethernet is, he asserts. The beauty ofEthernet is you can connect any GPU from any vendor using our switches, and it just works. Thats interoperability. Solutions that lock you into one vendors world are not scalable.
Currently, Broadcoms main competitors to Nvidias Spectrum-X are its Tomahawk5 and Jericho3-AI switch ASICs. Tomahawk5 is a high-throughput Ethernet switch designed for hyperscale and AI data centers, featuring advanced congestion management to reduce latency and supporting interoperability with any vendors data center infrastructure, helping customers avoid vendor lock-in. Likewise, Jericho3-AI is purpose-built for AI and machine learning workloads, enabling near-lossless Ethernet performance across large-scale clusters, similar to the performance claims made by Nvidias Spectrum-X.
Id challenge NVIDIA and others any day on both interoperability and performance. Broadcoms Ethernet offerings are miles ahead of Spectrum-X or any proprietary offerings out there, Velaga told Fast Company.
Strategic Partnerships and Silicon Ambitions Amidst the Rise of AI
Broadcom is creating custom silicon for AI leaders like Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, and Apple, designing ASIC chips tailored to optimize bandwidth, memory efficiency, and power draw for AI workloads in data centers and AI architectures. The company also provides key technologies such as high-bandwidth Ethernet switches, PCIe connectivity, and optical interconnects, all essential for scaling AI clusters. Velaga emphasized that these innovations enable clients to achieve superior data movement, processing speed, and energy efficiency, far surpassing off-the-shelf solutions.
Our goal is to help customers differentiate themselves, Velaga said. We provide the tools they need to build what works best for themwithout dictating the approach. They want flexible, cost-effective networking solutions to optimize their data centers and accelerators. With our Ethernet portfolio, ASICs, and silicon innovations, we are empowering large-scale GPU clusters to perform efficiently and at scale, essential for advancing AI. He added that Broadcom’s flexible approach positions the company as a key collaborative partner, an advantage likely to grow as AI infrastructure evolves.
Despite his confidence, Velaga admits there are risks. AI investment is surging now, but what if the momentum stalls? Everyones asking how long this wave will last. From my perspective, it feels like a real paradigm shift, he said. LLMs are changing how companies analyze data, make decisions, and engage with customers. Theres a lot at stake in this cycle.
What keeps him up at night isnt hypeits execution. We have to keep delivering innovation and scale so our customers stay confident in Broadcoms ecosystem. And so far, the signals are strong. Our customers arent pulling back, theyre doubling down. Were ready to lead.
Whether the boom continues or levels off, Broadcom is betting that the demand for fast, open data movement will only intensify. If Velagas vision is right, tomorrows AI data centers will be stitched together with open Ethernet, copackaged optics, and modular designs. We want to be the connective tissue of AI, he said. Its not the flashy partbut its the part that makes everything else work.
When I visited Malaysia and Singapore as a child, I was always curious about the many Chinese herbalist shops we’d pass on busy shopping streets. They looked like they were from another universe. As I peered through the windows, there were glass canisters full of mysterious ingredients: goji berry, bird’s nests, pearl dust, tiger bones, gazelle antlers.
We never went inside. My parentswho were trained as a nurse and a biochemist respectivelybrushed aside Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as unscientific at best, and dangerous at worst. So I grew up skeptical of these practices. I rolled my eyes when people suggested taking ginseng tea to boost my energy. I stayed clear of acupuncture and cupping.
My family’s perspective wasn’t uncommon. For centuries, those immersed in Western medicine have treated TCM with suspicion, mockery, and sometimes hostility. We’ve seen this play out in the Western media over the last decade. The Smithsonian Magazine reported that TCM’s use of pangolin scales is driving the creature towards extinction. The Economist argued that TCM dangerously peddles unproven remedies. When the World Health Organization began officially evaluating TCM practices, top science journals and magazinesScientific American and Naturecalled this a bad idea.
Still, some Americans are intrigued by the promises of Chinese medicine. Kim Kardashian gushes about her Chinese herbalist and Gwyneth Paltrow promotes acupuncture and Chinese herbal remedies. Now, interest in TCM is trickling down into the mainstream, particularly among women and people of color who feel that the Western medical establishment has failed them in some way.
There are now several startups, including Qi Health and Nooci, that are trying to make TCM more widespread. One of the most established is Elix, a five-year-old startup that wants to make TCM herbal formulas more accessible and widespread.
Lulu Ge, who incubated the company at Wharton Business School, is on a mission to prove that TCM is effective at tackling many women’s health problems including premenstrual syndrome, fibroids, endometriosis, and polycystic ovarian syndrome. We’ve talked to thousands of women who say they feel like their doctors aren’t taking their concerns seriously, Ge says. But Chinese doctors have been treating these issues for centuries with herbal formulas.
[Photo: Courtesy of Elix]
Ge is trying to create a more systematic approach to TCM, standardizing treatment, sourcing ingredients in such a way that the formulas are consistent, and conducting clinical studies to prove their effectiveness. This appears to be a winning strategy. Elix has had 60,000 subscribers since launching in 2020. More than 90% of women who try the formulation come back.
Given how much resistance there still is to TCM, Elix has an uphill battle ahead to achieve more mainstream adoption. But Ge, and other TCM advocates, believe there is more openness than ever before. If we could combine and integrate Western and Chinese approaches, we could really achieve a Golden Age of medicine, says Elizabeth Fine, dean of clinical education at Emperor’s College of Traditional Oriental Medicine, and an Elix advisor. Our studies are finding than when you introduce Chinese medicine into Western therapies, you get a much stronger effect.
Chinese Medicine and Marginalized Americans
Before Paltrow and Kardashian, members of the Black Panther Party and Puerto Rican activist group, the Young Lords, embraced Chinese medicine.
Back in the early 1970s, when heroin was ravaging Black and brown neighborhoods in New York, the prevailing way to treat addiction was to use another drug, methadone. But several Black doctors learned from Chinese communities that acupuncture could be a viable, drug-free alternative. So these groups opened an acupuncture clinic in Bronx called the Lincoln Detox Center. (At the time, acupuncture was illegal in several states in the U.S.; the government worked to shut the Bronx clinic down and succeeded in 1978.)
The relationship between Chinese medicine and other people of color goes back to the mid-1800s, when Chinese immigrants arrived in the U.S. to work on the railways during the Gold Rush. They brought herbs, ointments, and teas in case they got sick because few other forms of healthcare were available to them. Over time, Chinese doctors set up shops in Chinatown and would treat American patients as well. Minoriy groups, who could not afford to go to Western doctors, were particularly open to these doctors.
[Photo: Courtesy of Elix]
Ge sees Elix as part of this tradition. More than half of Elix’s customers are women of color. This makes sense to her, given that these communities have had more exposure to TCM than their white counterparts. On top of this, there is a lot of research showing that Black women experience discrimination in the healthcare system. In our one-on-one sessions with customers, we’ve had many women of color tell us they’ve felt marginalized or gaslit by doctors in the healthcare system, she says.
But more broadly, many women’s health problems have not been studied as thoroughly. There are many reasons for this, according to experts. For centuries, women were not included in clinical studies, since the male body was considered normative. And even today, women are underrepresented in medical research. As a result, conditions like premenstrual syndrome and polycystic ovarian syndrome remain poorly understood.
How Chinese Medicine Sees The Body
In some ways, the principles of Chinese medicine are particularly suited to tackling women’s health conditions, which are often associated with hormonal shifts.
According to Ge, the Chinese approach takes a much more holistic view of the body. It is interested in how the systems work over the course of a day, a month, and the year. If a patient feels unwell, the first step is to see how their body is out of balance, then figuring out how to balance it again. As a result, Chinese doctors are generally attuned to how a woman’s body changes over her menstrual cycle. If a woman feels more fatigued before her period or experiences a migraine, they have a keen sense of how their hormones are fluctuating and have herbal remedies designed to mitigate the shifts.
[Photo: Courtesy of Elix]
This contrasts with Western medicine, where doctors tend to be very specialized, which can make it hard to treat syndromes related to the menstrual cycle. I’ve seen this firsthand with my menstrual migraines. Since my gynecologist doesn’t specialize in headaches, she referred me to a neurologist. My neurologist prescribes me the latest migraine treatments, but he is not trying to treat the underlying hormonal shifts that are causing the migraine in the first place.
Mark Shrime, a Harvard Medical School professor and the editor the BMJ Global Health journal, says specialization is one of the strengths of Western medicine, which has allowed us to understand the human body in great depth. And, ultimately, when the healthcare system is working as it should, he says doctors should be thinking about how to treat the patient holistically. It’s a generalization to say that allopathic medicine [i.e. Western medicine] is irreparably siloed or doesn’t think holistically, Shrime says. Western doctors are trained to look beyond a particular symptom. But Chinese medicine partitioners tend to be generalists, which influences how they treat patients.
When it comes to their menstrual cycles, women face a wide range of symptoms, including cramps, headaches, depression and anxiety, bloating, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, gastrointestinal problems, sleep disturbances, and many more. TCM has developed a way of organizing these symptoms into patterns, and has identified particular herbs that can counter these issues.
When building Elix, Ge worked with TCM practitioners to categorize patterns and match them with specific formulas known to bring relief. It has also built a supply chain to source the herbs from trustworthy suppliers. Each batch of formulations is tested for both quality and consistency. One issue with traditional medicine is that it was hard to ensure the quality of the herbs, says Fine. If you weren’t getting results, you couldn’t tell if it was quackery, or if the quality of the herbs just wasn’t good.
Elix customers take an in-depth survey about their menstrual cycle which covers everything from period symptoms to chronic condition like fibroids. Using an algorithm, Elix will match these symptoms to a particular pattern and prescribe a formula. Our goal is to standardize this approach to medicine by identifying common patterns and provide the right formulations for each, Ge says. My biggest goal is to bring some clinical rigor to TCM, and to do so, we need to have some standardization and repeatability in place.
The Translation Problem
Ge believes that her brand has grown thanks to the efficacy of the formulas. Many customers provide feedback and reviews saying that Elix has relieved their symptoms. In some cases, women have reported that their PCOS has gone away completely.
Elix continues to grow, particularly among those who are frustrated with the healthcare system and are inclined towards experimenting with Chinese medicine. But to scale, Elix must go beyond these early adopters and tap into mainstream consumers who are less familiar with, or even skeptical of, TCM.
One way Ge is doing this is by translatng the principles of TCM into language that is more familiar to those immersed in Western medicine. Chinese medicine is based on the concept of qi, which refers to the universal life force, and balancing the ying and yang energies in the body. Many people recoil at this language. But Ge says that ying and yang maps neatly into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. And when Chinese medicine describes being out of balance, this often maps onto the concept of experiencing inflammation of some kind. We’re truing to explain these concepts from a Western medicine perspective so that they don’t feel so foreign and weird to people, says Ge.
[Photo: Courtesy of Elix]
Jonathan Leary, founder of the Remedy Place wellness clubs, has been open to incorporating treatments from other medical traditions into his clubs, including acupuncture. He agrees with Ge that translating these approaches into language that consumers will understand is key to to their success. One of my priorities is to bring alternative medicine mainstream, Leary says. When we communicate about it in a way that is relatable and scientific, people have quickly adapted.
Winning Over Skeptics With Clinical Studies
But Ge is also trying to provide evidence that her formulations work in a way that is understandable to Western doctors. This isn’t easy, partly because the format of clinical trials is about isolating a particular pharmaceutical compound, giving it to patients, and seeing how well it does against a placebo. The goal is to see the same result among a large proportion of those within the trial. In contrast, Chinese medicine recognizes that each patient is unique and formulations must be tailored to the individual’s symptoms.
Still, Elix is now conducting several independent clinical studies to see how the herbal formulations affect hormone-related symptoms. It recently released the results of a study around PCOS, a condition which affects between 6% and 13% of reproductive-aged women, and results in irregular periods, weight gain, and infertility. There is a lack of medical research into PCOS, and as result, there are no FDA-approved drugs to treat it. The results of the Elix study found that 89.3% of participants who used Elix’s formulas were able to regulate their cycle, and 71.4% found that it had improved their PCOS symptoms.
There’s a long way to go before TCM is widely accepted in America. But Elix reveals a possible path by which more people are able to learn more about the Chinese approach to medicine, and access treatments that might help them. And now, it seems Western medicine is beginning to open up to these approaches.
I would never recommend Chinese medicine as an alternative to going to your doctor, says Shrime. But I think there’s a greater acceptance of these treatments to complement allopathic medicine. There’s a recognition that some of these herbs do make you feel better, so if they don’t interact with another drug, I wouldn’t say no to a patient who wanted to try them.
